Tailgate Roadhouse moves into former Brauns space

Brauns closed its doors at 1055 Auraria Parkway this spring after nine years; the Pepsi Center, which owns the building, did not renew the lease. Now the space is getting ready to pour again: Aramark, which has the concessions contract at the Pepsi Center, is in charge of the kitchen at what will open as Tailgate Roadhouse.

Maybe as early as today.

But there's a catch: Tailgate Roadhouse will only be open when there are games/concerts at the nearby Pepsi Center. And with the NBA blackout, there aren't that many sporting events this season.

That's not the only change since the Pepsi Center took over the space: Initially it was going to be called the Parkway Pizzeria, but with a glut of pizza joints in LoDo, it became Tailgate Roadhouse instead.

Patricia Calhoun co-founded Westword, Denver’s News and Arts weekly, in 1977; she’s been the editor there ever since. She’s a regular on the weekly Colorado Public Television roundtable Colorado Inside Out, the former president of the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies -- a post that got her an unexpected interview with former President Bill Clinton in front of a thousand people (while she was in flip-flops) -- and played a real journalist in John Sayles’s Silver City.